Nominet Maintenance Reminder

[ukbackorder]

As I usually forget I thought I'd remind people there's a nominet maintenance from 05:00-08:00 on 19th Jan. You may find EPP and DAC connections dropping/resetting etc. Maybe they'll close the exploit

 

[ukbackorder]

Maintenance over. Everything is running again but with the EPP being hit hundreds of times per second I'm guessing nothing has changed.

 

[ukbackorder]

Obviously the way to go now is multiple linked tags. A fifth one for someone today, another catcher using four, another using at least two. Get your applications in

 

[boxerdog]

Can we once and for all have a list of the suspects? that way all of us that are concerned can share our concerns with Nominet, (granted they will probably do nothing about it)

 

[ukbackorder]

There aren't any 'suspects'. Anyone doing anything is clearly utilising the mechanisms provided by nominet - just not in a way that people would expect. Nominet will only act on AUP breaches. This is a puzzle not a witch hunt There is nothing to stop people getting multiple legitimate linked tags. The question is what is the benefit... I've applied for another one anyway, if anything just to get a new up-to-date tag name, so we'll see if anything jumps out such as quotas that don't apply across tags etc.

 

[Murray]

Any changes noticed?

 

[ukbackorder]

Any changes noticed?

Well got my new tag. Another 6 epp connections. Don't know if that's any use yet. What could you do with 20-30 epp connections...

 

[CreativeMix]

The only change is that CUNNINGHAM has now found the secret formula!!!!

There'll be another secret dossier turning up, telling us how Darren's actually a road sweeper from Bradford and Michael Toth's love child.

 

[CreativeMix]

Well got my new tag. Another 6 epp connections. Don't know if that's any use yet. What could you do with 20-30 epp connections...

Have you tried your machine code?

 

[CreativeMix]

Comments withdrawn and I'd like to apologise to Denys Ostashko who I wrongly accused of sending the anonymous email.

 

[boxerdog]

Wait for it................ Closed thread

 

[CreativeMix]

Nice haul, I presume CUNNINGHAM now has a similar arrangement and lets be honest, if it is legit, most of us would like a similar one?

I think it has been mentioned before, but the only thing I don't understand is why did you stop? - Not expecting you to answer this by the way..

I might be wrong but my guess is that Darren just got his head down and found the solution rather than skulking around ringing Nominet crying cheats, building poisonous dossiers, posting names on Twitter or sending anonymous emails like the rest did.

I stopped because the word of an anonymous coward was worth more than mine.

 

[CreativeMix]

Comments withdrawn and I'd like to apologise to Denys Ostashko who I wrongly accused of sending the anonymous email.

 

[CreativeMix]

I wasn't asking you to justify or explain anything, as I said if it is legit then why not join in if given the opportunity.

I'm enjoying writing things down. Everything is cloak and dagger in this game but I've accumulated thousands of messages, emails and screenshots from people telling me the secrets of others after fall outs, hacking and conversations etc.. These things never come out in public because they've all got something on each other, it's mutually assured self-destruction so it all stays hush hush.

I think most people just want and have always wanted a fair playing field. I don't code and I pay for my seat at the table, as more of a hobby than anything else. I never really expected to compete with the big boys, but the excitement of maybe catching something half decent once in a while made it worth the effort and expense.

With respect you're being naive, this is an industry driven by greed and hatred. Nominet will fix the - legal - method that Ben and Darren use in early March. After that we're back to the status quo and if you aren't prepared to cheat, you stand very little chance of winning.

However, it now feels like not only am I an amateur at the table, but the pros are now using a loaded deck.

There's plenty of people who aren't getting a look in, most suffer in silence.

 

[Paullas]

Well if anyone wants to share secrets/strategies with me im all ears

My email is paullas ((at)) laskos.com

 

[webber]

The thing that doesn't quite make sense to me is why BHD is no longer among the successful tags each day despite the fact that his code/method apparently still works and is used by others?
Has he been banned / restricted in some way by Nominet?

Well got my new tag. Another 6 epp connections. Don't know if that's any use yet. What could you do with 20-30 epp connections...

Do you get 1000 failed epp create requests per tag or are they aggregated per account?
Here's a thought: more epp connections mean more servers/ips you can use at the same time. Will multiple concurrent connections to DAC, each with their own EPP connection, cause the DAC usage to somehow be incorrectly calculated? Similar to how last year connecting from a different IP would give you a fresh quota?

 

[Murray]

The thing that doesn't quite make sense to me is why BHD is no longer among the successful tags each day despite the fact that his code/method apparently still works and is used by others?

Total guess

Maybe Nominet told him he couldn't use the bhd tag in the way he was, maybe for nothing more than it appeared like multi-tagging and the perception was bad even though the method was fine and above board

Now instead of the bhd tag he is using someone else's and they're currently catching a lot

 

[ukbackorder]

The thing that doesn't quite make sense to me is why BHD is no longer among the successful tags each day despite the fact that his code/method apparently still works and is used by others?
Has he been banned / restricted in some way by Nominet?

Do you get 1000 failed epp create requests per tag or are they aggregated per account?
Here's a thought: more epp connections mean more servers/ips you can use at the same time. Will multiple concurrent connections to DAC, each with their own EPP connection, cause the DAC usage to somehow be incorrectly calculated? Similar to how last year connecting from a different IP would give you a fresh quota?

DAC is separate. You still only have your normal connections - the tag is irrelevant as all your tags share the same DAC quota. However there is no point using the DAC as a contested domain is already registered before you see the N. There are 2 ways of doing it and both would benefit from more EPP connections (hence people getting more and more tags). There is either a domain specific EPP command which uses no quota and somehow indicates a change in status of a domain or there is something that can be polled and produces a timing delay when a domain might drop. You could act on that timing delay to fire off a check or create. The more connections you have the more things you can be doing at the same time. It's just a matter of finding the command that produces a result you can act on. EPP creates are aggregated. Obviously this could be barking up the wrong tree entirely However testing shows that the DAC is most probably out with sought after domains spotted changing in less than 5ms. So leaves only EPP, DNS, and whatever other services nominet might be running to get the trigger. It should be noted that none of that is a breach of AUP.

 

[webber]

The thing that confuses me is that if 2 tags are working together isn't that collusion and against Nominets terms even if the method is legal?

It's a grey area... As long as someone is using someone else's code without any input into what domains to catch etc, then that is fine, similar to how hosted catching and revenue sharing is allowed.

There is either a domain specific EPP command which uses no quota and somehow indicates a change in status of a domain or there is something that can be polled and produces a timing delay when a domain might drop.

Could there be an EPP command that is part of the EPP standard but not documented by Nominet?
I get what you're saying, since you can only poll at max 60ms interval it will seem like the domain is always registered even if you get the N. But if someone could abuse the DAC by somehow managing to circumvent the usage calculation, then they could poll from multiple servers every few ms (at least in theory).

 

[ukbackorder]

Could there be an EPP command that is part of the EPP standard but not documented by Nominet?
I get what you're saying, since you can only poll at max 60ms interval it will seem like the domain is always registered even if you get the N. But if someone could abuse the DAC by somehow managing to circumvent the usage calculation, then they could poll from multiple servers every few ms (at least in theory).

There could be but nominet say there isn't.
You don't have to poll every 60ms. You can poll as often as you want - you just can't do it for long before you have to wait for the rest of the quota period. If you are lucky enough that the domain drops in that time you can get an idea of the speed of changing. That's how I have seen domains (only three times in a few weeks though) change in less than 5ms. But I discount the DAC anyway. It's only useful for chasing domains that won't be highly sought after.